


One Summer's

by shinmegaymer (frontierpodiatrist)



Category: Rune Factory (Video Games), Rune Factory 4
Genre: Angst, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Kissing, Love Confessions, Minor Character Death, Near Death Experience, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:40:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25535251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frontierpodiatrist/pseuds/shinmegaymer
Summary: Amber experiences a series of summers, most of the time with Clorica.
Relationships: Amber/Clorica (Rune Factory), Forte/Margaret (Rune Factory), Lest/Xiao Pai (Rune Factory)





	One Summer's

**One summer's day.**

It’s only been a couple of months since she’s woken up, everything different from how it used to be, like it changed and made something new of itself around the cocoon she was resting in all these years. And even more so, there’s something else. Something she’s forgotten. Almost immediately she decides not to dwell on it, but every time she sees a feather, everytime she looks in the sky, she feels something aching, wishing, wanting.  
Nothing she should dwell on.  
Spring comes and goes, it has always felt so fleeting and short, just like it did all those years ago. The flowers bloom, the air and the wind pick up and leave dandelion puffs in her hair. And just like that, it’s summer again. The lake was here before, along with the mansion across the way, looming but somehow friendly in the sunlight. They open the lake for swimming on the first day of summer, a tradition she remembers. Lumie takes her there that first week of summer, splashes her with the sun warm water, swims as elegantly as the fish that scramble to get away. Amber builds terrible sand castles that fall apart as soon as she looks away.  
She finds Clorica almost every time she visits the lake, dozing off under the shade of a tree. Sometimes she’s in her bathing suit, dripping water on the grass, curled up for an aprés swimming nap. As far as Amber can tell, whether she’s in uniform or not is completely random. She always sleeps with her legs straight out, hands in her lap, head lolled over on her shoulder. It’s cute in a funny way. She always has to talk Lumie out of pranking her, instead waking her up to join them. Clorica never refuses, blinking the sleep out of her eyes and smiling.

**One summer’s day.**

The sky in the summer is a brilliant blue, sparkling and hazy like a fading dream. When the wind picks up and catches the leaves, Amber spreads out and flaps her wings in the hopes the breeze will carry her away into that dazzling sky. Flying with the birds, heated by the sun, heading to some distant land with flowers as brilliant as she remembers. But her wings are small and frail, and the wind can only lift her high enough that her feet barely leave the ground. There is always someone to catch her. Sometimes it’s Lumie, sometimes Lest, Forte, Doug. Sometimes it’s Clorica, and she abruptly wakes up once Amber’s body hits her chest.  
Swimming is fun but the water always catches on her paper thin wings, makes her lethargic and slow, head bobbing under the water as she tries to fly in the one place she can’t. Most of the time she stands on the shore with her arms spread and her toes in the sand, eyes closed to the blinding light with a content smile on her face. Clorica asks her once, “Amber, why do you want to fly away, if you don’t mind me asking?”  
“Why do you want to swim?” she asks (instead of answering).  
Clorica puts a finger to her chin in thought, tilting her head, the weight of the water dripping off her hair undoing one of her braids into curly tendrils. “I think because it’s fun. And when it’s hot, like today, it’s a good way to cool off.”  
“The sea is just a wetter version of the sky! Or in this case, the lake,” Amber proclaims, and Clorica bursts into giggles, prompting Doug to come check what’s going on. She’s laughing too hard to breathe, let alone explain.

**One summer’s day.**

Before the end of that first year, Dylas moves into town. She can’t place why, but looking into his eyes swimming with anxiety, his whole face turning a shy red, she feels something like camaraderie. Something familiar. Like they’ve met someplace before, like they have something in common but she can’t place what it is yet. The spring of next year, Dolce moves into town. She’s come from that mansion across the lake, old and dusty and warm, smelling like apple cider. When Amber looks at her, she gets that same muted feeling of companionship, like the three of them are tied inseparably together. And yet, there’s still some blank space between the three of them, two blank spaces to be specific. Some kind of puzzle she can’t figure out.  
So she just stops thinking about it.  
She’s grown closer to Clorica, tailing behind her and watching as she slips into a dream in the middle of cooking, completely unbeknownst to her surroundings, yet just as talented as before, if not more so. Amber grows addicted to her apple pies, stealing pieces while Clorica’s eyes are closed, only to feel bad about it later, and leave flowers in her big poofy pants pockets. She always has a puzzled look on her face when she finds them, pressing them to her face as if smelling them will somehow provide her answers. “Maybe I have a secret admirer,” she’ll say, eyes twinkling like the fireflies at night and Amber giggles and says, “Yeah!” and asks her if she could make another pie ... maybe with some smoothies this time. Clorica tells her it’s too much fruit to eat in one sitting, but she makes it anyway, and they eat it on a blanket on the beach.

**One summer’s eve.**

Meg organizes a slumber party. At 9 o’clock, when the fireflies are out and land on the tips of the fingers and swarm her like small friends, that’s when she should put on her pajamas and march down to Meg’s house, only a short walk from her own. Her nightgown is breezy and airy, when she steps outside the wind ruffles the bottom frill of her dress and caresses her legs and arms, leaving her skin cool and dry. Clorica is already there, along with Forte and Xiao Pai, they’re sitting in a little circle with Meg standing at the door to let her in. “Glad you could make it!” she says, and pulls Amber into a comforting, warm hug. She’s tall, Amber has to stand on her tippy toes to even reach her shoulders, but her hugs are soft and nice, and when Meg lets her go she mourns the loss of that reassurance. “Take a seat! The others should be here soon.” Her face splits into a wide beam, blue eyes glowing with happiness.  
Amber ends up between Clorica and Forte, sitting on the blanket and the pillow she stripped off her bed before she left. Clorica tells them a “horror” story (horror in quotations because it’s not scary whatsoever) about a man with amnesia, Forte screeches and clings to Amber’s arm the whole time, like this small waif of a girl could protect a knight. Her long straw blonde hair tickles the back of Amber’s neck, leaving a smell like strawberry shortcake in its wake. Meg tells them about a song she’s composing, a love song, and everybody is immediately and suddenly pressing closer like a shark chasing blood in the water. Everyone except her and Forte (still holding her arm), completely clueless to the subject at hand. Forte eventually notices she’s still clinging and lets go with a litany of apologies, her face bright red like the tomatoes Lumie picks from their garden. Meg laughs at her, her face a dusty pink; she raps her arm and Amber abruptly realizes she was probably writing that song for her (and not for Lest, which was the common conclusion).  
She, Clorica, and Meg are the last ones awake.  
This surprises Amber for obvious reasons, so she asks. Clorica says, “I can’t sleep after telling a scary story,” and the laugh that bubbles out of her is almost loud enough that she wakes up everybody else, tiny form shaking with the force of it. Meg smiles, presses a delicate hand to her mouth as if to hide it, murmuring, “we should probably go to bed,” and Amber would agree but she’s too busy suppressing her uncontrollable giggles. Clorica still has a pout on her face when she finally falls asleep, her eyes drooping as she watches Amber snicker.

**One summer’s afternoon.**

After long days at the beach she ends up at the bathhouse, sand sticking to her like a second skin, sea salt in her hair and on her tongue when she goes under and accidentally swallows a mouthful. She visits right before dinnertime, washing off the grime, and letting the warm water and the mist flow through her and awaken the hunger in her belly. And then after dinner she collapses into clean sheets, smelling like fancy soaps and lotions that feel just like a second home now. When she gets there Clorica is already settled into the bath, just her nose and eyes visible from above the water, breathing little bubbles with her eyes closed and slipping just a little below only waking up when her nose is suddenly submerged. Xiao Pai is there mopping behind the plants, staring wistfully outside at the setting sky. Dolce is at the cubby folding her clothes meticulously into the box, Pico a shimmering figure by her side, yelling something or other about how “saucy” she is until Dolce smacks a hand through her semi corporeal body.  
She bounds in with only half her normal energy, her wings soaked and heavy with both water and sand, her whole body scratchy with the coarse bits chafing her skin. She almost cannonballs into the water but is stopped by a frantic Xiao Pai, yelling about her own misfortune mopping up until 11 at night and Amber waves a hand in surrender, stepping into the water like a normal person. She’s never seen Dolce look so relieved, her hair creating waves around her body like the paintings they make of mermaids. “You look like a mermaid,” she says and Dolce’s face is instantly aflame. Pico makes a face like there’s something smelly in the room before crossing her arms, her little legs dangling into the water but not moving it.  
“Oh, Amber ...” Clorica murmurs, blinking one eye and then the other, her head slowly emerging from beneath the steam. “When did you get here?” she asks, tilting her head, before spotting Dolce and tilting it the other way. “When did the both of you get here?” Dolce simply smiles and rolls her eyes, Amber laughs, splashes Clorica with a finely aimed hand squeeze of water directly to her face. Then her eyes suddenly open all the way, the shock of the force pulling her from the drowsy mist settling over her brain. “Oh!” she says, blinking abruptly, as the water rivulets travel down her hair and drip off her eyelashes. “Amber, could you help me wash my back?” (Amber, of course, says yes).  
She pours a generous glob in her hands, rubbing it together until the soap overtakes her hands entirely. Xiao Pai lingers nervously, like Amber is going to create a catastrophe of bubbles, and while she  _ is  _ tempted, she doesn’t. All she does is rub those bubbles across the plane of Clorica’s neck and shoulders, leaving bubbles popping across the skin. “Do you need somebody to wash your back?” Clorica says to Dolce, and Dolce nods her head no, looking terribly embarrassed and maybe a tad overheated. When Clorica washes her own, Dolce has already left, Xiao Pai leaving her trust in Amber not to destroy the bath while she tends the counter (a mistake). Her hands trail across the plane of her back and Amber laughs, ticklish in the fleeting feeling. Clorica laughs, pours more soap, and they end up leaving the room a mess of bubbles anyway. Amber can hear Xiao Pai’s “oh no!” when she’s already outside and dressed, linked arms with Clorica as they head home for the day.

**One summer’s day.**

They visit the beach often on the holidays, or rather, Clorica visits and Amber follows. The whole week has been humid, leaving a sweat mark the size of her body in her bed when she wakes up. When they get there and Amber takes a seat on the sand, the granules digging into her, her mouth dries up at the thought of the fruit in her bag. She bites into the orange she plucked from a tree in the forest. Clorica watches her from the shimmering blue of the lake, slapping the surface of the water with her hands to make it splash. “You’re like a vampire,” she says, swinging her hips and gesturing to Amber’s incisors deep into the flesh of the fruit. Once it’s drained to nothing more than a husk of tasteless skin she tosses the scraps in her knapsack to add to her compost pile. “Don’t vampires burn in the sun?” she says, spreading out her scrawny but uncharred arms towards the light. “That sounds so sad, not being able to go in the sun.”  
Clorica wrings her hair as she ponders, fingers combing through the curls. “They get to live forever, though, eternal beauty, they’re so fast they wouldn’t need to worry about falling asleep, super strength, to name only a few ...”  
“I don’t want to live forever. It’s lonely,” she says, her face blank and distant. “And vampires  _ can’t  _ sleep! That’s terrible! Dreaming is so fun, imagine if you couldn’t dream anymore!”  
Clorica hums like she’s considering it but has already made up her mind. “I’ve been asleep half my life, and every time I dream, I wouldn’t mind being awake for the rest of it. Maybe I’d learn something!” She laughs, something melodic and soft.  
Amber rests her head on one palm, wiggling her toes in the water that laps up to the shore to cover them. “If I couldn’t dream, I wouldn’t see my old friends anymore,” she says it softly, looking at the trees. “They would’ve loved you!” She beams, looking back up to a stunned Clorica, smile stuck to her face but giggles stopped in her throat, eyes wild and unblinking. Expression becoming something thoughtful, comforting, her eyes hood and her lips stretch into a gentle closed mouth smile. “I would’ve loved to meet them,” she says.

**One summer’s eve.**

Sometimes she finds herself at the entrance to the lake, crouching in front of the seedling she planted. They planted it out of season a year ago, so it’s never grown into anything beyond a frail little leaf, but she likes to watch over it anyway. Just in case. She can’t even remember what it is they planted, but maybe it’s a summer flower. That’s just the feeling she gets.  
That night, she dreams.  
On a dark and blue landscape, she is on the beach. She turns around, and the sapling was neither a flower nor a crop. It is a long, long vine, splitting the ground and trailing into the sky, past the clouds into some great beyond unknown to her. She approaches it without any worry, running her hand up the side of it like she can hear a heart beating inside. And she starts to climb. Amber isn’t scared of heights, or of falling, her wings will catch her on the clouds, and float her down to the ground. But she knows she has to reach the top, it’s imperative that she does, a matter of life and death. Well, maybe not that dramatic, but she knows she has to get there. Somebody’s waiting for her and she’s already late.  
It feels like centuries before she reaches the top, as long as she’d been asleep in the forest, resting unaware. When she reaches it, the green vine plateaus, leaving ground to step on that extends only 20 feet. The clouds obscure her vision but when she steps forward she smells jam and toast, cakes and pastries, freshly baked cookies. “Amber? Is that you?” she hears, and when the fog finally clears it’s her old friends, sitting on a picnic blanket, smiling and laughing just as she remembers them. They’ve got a feast of sweets set up, dressed in their nicest clothes, the ones they wore when they saw her off, like they’ve been here this whole time waiting for her to wake up. “Look,” one of them says, pointing past her, and she does. Beyond, in the forests on the ground, the grass is alight. The flowers she’s always loved, dreamed of, wished for, giant and growing with love and affection like she’s personally been attending to them in her mind for the day they’d bloom. “We’ve been waiting for you,” one of them says, and she turns back to them, opening her mouth to reply but no words will come out. Behind her is someone else she feels, someone who looks just like her, who walks past her, and sits down with her friends like it’s their own right. Her own face looks at her, a soft smile, eyes hooded, an expression she’s never made before, and says, “see you on a dark night.”  
She wakes up in a cold sweat, blankets curled around her legs.

**One summer’s day.**

A year after Dolce moves into town, the third summer since she woke up, she finds out what those two blank spaces were. She’s standing in front of Venti, with Leon, Dolce, and Dylas, and finally she understands those two blank spaces. That feeling, that sadness, that something was missing. Something was incomplete. And she finally understands. 

**One summer’s day.**

Summer is her favourite season because the flowers are all in bloom, the weather is warm, and Yokmir Forest is at its most beautiful. She hasn’t told anybody she goes there because they’d try to stop her. Too small, too frail, can’t defend herself. But nothing there could ever hurt her. Amber is as much a part of the forest as the monsters, the trees, the flowers, and the fish. Amber is a part of Ambrosia. Once Lest beat her, he stopped coming, busy with other things. The forest is her own personal paradise.  
It’s pure happenstance Clorica sees her trying to leave town one day. She’s brought a little knapsack full of honey and juice and fruits, and a small little cloth she “borrowed” from Lumie’s linen closet. A picnic for one. The sleepy butler-in-training happens to be sweeping town square, and Amber just didn’t walk fast enough. “What are you doing?” She jogs up to her with polite worry in the crease of her eyebrows. “Are you leaving town?”  
Amber has never been good at lying.  
After a  _ thorough  _ explanation, they are sitting together in the forest clearing on Amber’s blanket for one. Clorica doesn’t quite believe her until the butterflies show up one by one to land in her hair as if by greeting. The topics of conversation are easy, light. She’s always found Clorica an easy person to talk to, conversational, polite, and (most importantly) physically affectionate. Meg, her, and Xiao Pai have always been pretty good about it but Forte and Dolce took some   
... coaxing. Speaking of Forte, before leaving Amber  _ begged  _ Clorica not to tell the knight (“please, please,  _ please _ ”) about these excursions, because if she did, going alone would be out of the question.  
They make it a tradition.  
Whenever both of them have an hour free that summer, they visit Yokmir Forest. Amber tells her about the blooming flowers, the round rocks underneath the waterfall, the monsters shedding their skin to start anew. Clorica tells her about the happenings around the castle, how she’s Getting It Together since their meetup, and about ... wanting a boyfriend. Today, she’s sighing with her head in one palm, mumbling something about Jones and Nancy. The first time this was brought up, Amber looked at her like  _ she  _ had grown antennae. Even now it’s still befuddling. “I just want somebody to hold my hand,” she says. Amber, of course, says, “Why would you need a boyfriend for that? I could hold your hand.” She grabs her hand for demonstration, the touch warm and a little moist, like she got sweaty nervous just from the thought of it. Clorica giggles, swinging their joined hands. “Of course you can, that wasn’t very clear of me. I want somebody to tell me that they love me, like Jones and Nancy.”  
“I love you,” says Amber.  
“I love you too,” says Clorica, mouth wide on a smile.  
“See? You don’t need a boyfriend,” she says, scooting closer to lean on their joined arms. “I can be whatever you want.” Clorica looks at her for a moment, like she’s unsure of what to make of the statement but lets her body sag in the warm sunlight, mumbling a soft “thank you,” before they both fall asleep.

**One summer’s afternoon.**

Clorica visits the shop sometimes, usually she doesn’t buy anything, offering the lingering of her company. They play guessing games, talk about the upcoming festival, chat about their friends, about everything happening in town and around it. It’s been a rough winter and spring at war with the Sechs, and everybody who doesn’t fight has been scrambling to keep up appearances, some semblance of normality. The festivals don’t cancel, the meetings aren’t postponed, they won’t let him win and be silenced. So they go about their days.  
Lumie is out today, busy on “detective business”, so Amber is running the shop. Clorica sighs suddenly, her fingers skimming over the soft petals of a potted plant, and Amber’s eyes are drawn to the pollen that seeps out from the middle. Her cheeks puff in a pout, almost tugging a petal off as she loses herself in her thoughts, but halts at the last minute. “I wish things were normal again,” she says, crossing her arms in a show of frustration. Amber moves her head up from where it was resting on her palm, seeking out Clorica’s eyes. “Don’t hold in sadness,” she says. “Cry if you need to.” And Clorica does, her quiet tears dripping onto the petals of the flower pot her hands are gently grasped around.

**One summer’s afternoon.**

The day they win, they have a huge celebration. Porcoline cooks up a feast, with Dylas, Blossom, and Clorica’s help. They make pies, and stuffed fish, and egg dishes, udon, fried noodles, curry, pastries. It’s a packed house. Clorica sits across from Amber second from the left, Vishnal and Lumie at the end seats, Lest with Xiao Pai, Dolce and Pico across from Kiel who’s next to Forte, blushing at Meg reaching across the table to feed her cake with a fork. Everyone else is at the other table, Dylas and Doug flinging food at each other, Blossom chuckling into her bowl of soup, Leon and Arthur having a sophisticated conversation despite the setting. It’s loud but it’s joyful, everyone laughing and hugging and eating. It’s everything Amber’s always wanted, the people she loves to be happy and pleased and safe. And she’s happy. Because she’s surrounded by people she loves, and those people are happy, and her friend and hero is still alive and well. So she laughs and she lets Clorica feed her apple pie with an “ahhh,” and does the same in return and they giggle and laugh and clasp their hands over the table. Lest leaves in the middle of dinner, brighter than she’s seen him in at least a year, if not more, kissing Xiao Pai’s cheek before he slips out the door.  
He comes back later, when the sky starts to twinkle with stars, and everyone’s winding down to a comfortable lull, stomachs full and hearts soaring. He has an expression on his face that makes Amber’s heart twinge, an expression of resignation, of grief, of remorse. She’s still holding Clorica’s hands, grasped over the table, but the smile instantly falls off her face. Clorica leans forward to ask what’s wrong, entirely oblivious to Lest’s sulking image by the door, reluctant to come in. When Amber catches his eyes, he looks away, something shimmering in his eyes, moist and damp and raw.  
Something’s happened.

**One summer’s eve.**

It’s been storming violently all week, thunder that cracks the sky, and water that soaks so thoroughly you’ll catch a cold in the middle of summer. Typhoons come and go, taking bits and pieces of the town with them, small crackling bits of the buildings. Stripping them base by base. It’s been two weeks since she found out Venti’s returned to the Forest of Beginnings, and it hasn’t gotten any better. Lumie’s been crawling into her bed at night because she’ll hear Amber whining in her sleep, tossing and turning, and then she’ll sing lullabies and stroke her green hair until she passes out again.   
She opens her eyes on the beach of the lake. It’s twilight, everything is dark yet still visible, twinkling, sparkling. Clorica is in the lake in front of her, smiling, wearing her swimsuit. When one of her braids dips into the water Amber expects it to be wet, but when it pulls up it is just as dry as before, floating atop the lake like it’s buoyant. “Come in,” she says. Her eyes twinkle like she knows something secretive, lips curled into a playful smile. “Come join me,” she says, and opens her arms for Amber to cast herself into. So she does. As soon as both of her legs are in the water she falls straight through.  
Turning upside down she looks up, eyes open, at the murky blue of the water. There’s no fish around, or Clorica, and she knows somehow she doesn’t need to breathe. Her whole body turns over once more and she hits the ground with her legs straight out in a sitting position. The ground is smooth and dry and she knows this isn’t  _ really _ the lake, but it feels like home anyway. There’s another person sitting across from her, legs tucked under them. And it’s her. “Hello,” the person who looks like her says. “I am she from the forest.”  
“Ambrosia,” says Amber. “That’s your name. Isn’t it?”  
She from the forest smiles, in a mysterious way Amber has never seen or felt on her face before. “You can call me whatever you like. Names do not matter to me anymore.”   
“It’s nice to see you,” Amber says, grinning despite the grief. “Are you lonely?”  
Ambrosia shakes her head, the water carrying her hair to fan dramatically around her face. “No. Thank you,” she says, and even though they share the same body, Ambrosia speaks deeper, like she’s pulling strings deep within Amber’s body that she didn’t know existed. “Are you leaving?” she says, tilting her head with no change of expression.  
Amber leans back on her hands, closing her eyes to the water ruffling her eyelashes. “I want to fly with Venti in the skies,” she whispers, and when she opens her eyes it’s to the sunlight.

**One summer’s day.**

She sees Clorica in town that morning, and flings herself into Clorica’s arms, but the ground doesn’t turn upside down, and Amber doesn’t fall under water she can breathe in. Clorica smells like apples, vanilla and lavender, and her arms are warm and soft. “What’s wrong?” she says, and Amber says, “Nothing at all.” She stretches on her tippy toes and kisses Clorica’s forehead, fingers caught in her hair for only a moment before she pulls away in a twirl.  
All day she goes around the town showering her friends in affection, hugging Forte and Dolce, letting Meg pet her head, tackling Xiao Pai, surprising Lest in a hug from behind, she even gives Doug a hug when she runs into him by accident, and when she reaches home she bounds over to Lumie in a bone crushing hug. Lumie has to tap her to let go, she can’t breathe, but when she does her face is split in a smile wider than anything Amber’s ever seen on her. “What’s the occasion?” she says, and Amber says, “Nothing at all.”

**One summer’s afternoon.**

Even though summer is the most beautiful season, this summer even Yokmir Forest feels different. The trees aren’t as green, the flowers aren’t as large, the creatures hide in the bushes instead of coming out to meet her. She’s sitting on the cliff, feet dangling off the edge, letting the gusts of wind brush over her. The sky has melded into a mix of oranges, reds, and yellows over the horizon, leaving the hills awash with warm colours. When she stands up on that edge the wind almost knocks her straight over into the cave below, but that won’t do. That won’t do at all. She spreads out her arms, closing her eyes to the light, and she starts to flap her wings. The air pushes her up, lifting her feet until just the tips of her shoes touch the grassy cliff.  
Suddenly she’s overcome by that breeze, melding with the setting sun. Comfort and realization settles over her and she’s calm, she’s happy, she’s ready. Her feet lift off the ground, her wings carry her off to somewhere new, and then -  
“ _I won’t let you fly away!_ ”  
She’s forcibly pulled backwards, her wrist grabbed and yanked on, and she goes tumbling into warm arms and the scent of apples and vanilla and lavender. Clorica grabs her face, running her palms up and down it and Amber just smiles, “I’m fine,” but she doesn’t believe her anyway. “You can’t fly, you’ll fall, your wings won’t carry you the whole way,” she says, her face twisted into something sorrowful. “Amber what was it you said it to me? Don’t hold in sadness. You can cry when you need to. Venti is gone, she’s  _ gone  _ Amber. You can mourn.”  
And just like that she does. She cries, and cries, and cries. After so long wondering what those blank spaces were, now there’s a hole where one once was. After going into a long sleep to protect her, those sacrifices and that work, but it’s all amounted to only four more years with her. Nothing left of her old world, nothing at all but the shimmering lake in Selphia.

**One summer’s day.**

The day Lest brings Venti back Amber cries for an entirely different reason. She shows up at the castle, grin on the face, smile ready. But as soon as Venti looks up she crumples into tears, stumbling over to pull her long scaled neck into a hug. Her bigger, feathered wings come to surround her, and Amber cries and cries and says “you’re so dumb,” at least twice. She finally gets to do it, just like she wanted, to soar with Venti in the sky, though it’s not how she planned. Her wings really won’t carry her high enough, so she has to hitch a ride. They soar over Yokmir, over the planes, around Leon’s tower, all the way to the Sechs empire and back. It’s sweltering outside, but with how high up they are, Amber can barely feel it.  
By the time they’re back Amber is giddy with happiness, with delight, and she steps back to let Dolce and Pico waiting there to shower Venti with love and admonishments. Amber has a date.

**One summer’s eve.**

They meet at the observatory at 8 o’clock. Amber wanted to make s’mores but they don’t have any source of fire (or anywhere anyone would let Amber set something on fire), Clorica ends up bringing them a freshly steamed lobster for herself, and a jam roll for Amber from the restaurant, with some napkins. Amber brings that same linen she’s used so much Lumie just decided it was hers now. They have to bunch it up a little to make sitting on the creaky boards a little more comfortable, but Amber doesn’t mind so much. The stars are bright, brighter than they’ve been in awhile, glimmering in the sky. Clorica points out some constellations in between her meal, licking her fingers clean from any stray pieces of meat. Amber is and always has been a messy eater, leaving jam around her mouth and crumbs in her hair. It took enough convincing to get Clorica to buy her fruit for dinner.  
“Are you sure you’re okay with me?” Clorica says suddenly, looking at her when Amber was lost in thought. She reaches forward, swiping a piece of jam off of Amber’s cheek to wipe on her napkin. “Someday I might miss something by accident ...”  
Amber’s expression is blank for a moment, big eyes blinking as if she’s thinking before her face breaks into a wide smile. “If I could pick and choose, I would choose you. You’ve always been there for me, and I wanna be there for you,” she says, and swipes some jam from her roll onto her thumb, promptly smearing it on Clorica’s cheek. She looks confused for a moment until Amber kisses her cheek, taking the jam with it. Clorica laughs, so Amber kisses her lips instead.


End file.
